


not common, but essential

by preromantics



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M, Supernatural Elements, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-21
Updated: 2010-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-10 17:33:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/102311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preromantics/pseuds/preromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein there is an accidental mindmeld and feelings and thinking about being naked, and also wherein Chris reads a lot and Zoe's house is an enabling place. <i>Zach rolls his eyes, and when he shifts on the floor, Chris can feel it along his entire side. "I --" Zach says, in a grand sort of way, "would pick mindmelds. Bonding."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	not common, but essential

Zoe's new house isn't the best for a party with all of them. Chris' living room is probably larger, despite his house being smaller, and he knows for a fact he has better furniture and that Karl has a pool table, but Zoe's is closest so they go there on Friday night.

It's not really a party, only about twenty of them from the set, about sixteen of which Chris can actually name. He knows the one assistant producer slash intern slash way-too-young-for-Chris girl, her name in Chris' phone as 'nice rack' so he isn't sure if he should count her as one of the sixteen people but he does anyway. He's also pretty sure he didn't put her in his phone as that, but she called one day when he was running late on set because of a flat tire and was extremely surprised to see that pop up on his caller id.

Since the gathering is small, there is way too much alcohol and too little room, and Chris is on his fourth beer before he notices, pressed cool and a little wet into his palm by Zach as they all settle into the living room.

"Party game time," Zoe says, brightly, once everyone has settled into a circle more-or-less, Chris on the floor with his back against a side table leg, Zach sitting cross-legged next to him so their knees touch, comfortable.

Most people groan. Karl leans over and covers Anton's ears and he laughs, too loud, the neck of his beer almost slipping from between his fingers as Chris watches.

Zoe rolls her eyes at them all though, sitting high up in the middle of her couch, back straight, a half-full glass of wine in her hand, the stem of it between her fingers. Chris wishes he had known about the wine; his stomach feels heavy with the beer and he feels a little sleepy, a little slow to hear what everyone is saying around him. He's fine, though.

John is tucked into an armchair across from where Chris is sitting, and sometimes when Chris is thinking too hard and John is in the right light, Chris likes to think about him being some never-aging alien. Chris is constantly getting reminded (in ways his PR people and his manager completely think are subtle, like, "did you try that new face cream that company happened to send you for free?" or "how many miles did you run today?") of how he's getting old. How he needs to keep his skin great and his smile white before his roguish good looks are ruined, precariously balanced as they already are.

(Zach thinks that's bullshit, because Chris mentioned something about face-creams late one night while they were sitting on Zach's couch pretending to watch a Lakers game but really trying to come up with the most creative insults and probably punching each other a lot; but no one said they had to act like adults when no one could see.

Zach had said something like, "Look at Clooney -- do you think he uses Mediterranean import facial cream for wrinkles?"

Which was unfair, because George Clooney was, like, the base standard for aging actors that no one could actually achieve, so Chris said, "No -- I think you use Mediterranean import facial creams. Plus, Clooney is unfair, he sold his soul so he could age better than the rest of us."

"Us being?" Zach had asked, while not admitting to not buying import facial creams, which made Chris feel like he'd won part of their conversation.

Which lead to a conversation about how to include the whole of the film industry in one blanket or umbrella word, which lead to talking about who was the best infomercial host, somehow, and Chris forgot all about getting old and it didn't matter anyway.)

John, though, must catch Chris staring blankly over at him, so they engage in a mildly intense sort of staring contest while Chris tries to figure out in his head if it's the appropriate venue to theorize on John's alien origins.

Zach laughs at something someone says and knocks into Chris' shoulder just as he's about to win his staring contest and Chris loses his concentration and leans back to accommodate Zach's sudden weight on his shoulder. His laugh is loud, un-reserved, and Chris figures Zach has had about the same amount of alcohol as he has, so he doesn't mind the warm weight, always a little pleased when Zach lets go near him.

Zoe clears her throat in a way that makes most heads turn towards her, because she's a head-turner by nature, and Chris twists to look at her while figuring out where to put his beer with Zach's legs taking up most of the floorspace nearest to his hand.

"Alright," Zoe says, "someone tell me your favorite part of Trek canon." A little of her wine sloshes down her wrist. Zach makes a rumbling noise in his throat but doesn't comment over everyone else in the room.

Someone yells, _nerd_ and Zoe flicks the room off at large, and no one says anything for a moment.

"Transporting," John says, shrugging in his chair. To his right on the couch, now settled next to Zoe, her arm draped comfortable around him, Anton agrees.

They go around the room and list things. Karl's favorite part is the replicators, because he wouldn't have to be afraid of blowing up his house by way of the stove when he wanted food. Anthony from tech likes the idea of different cultures, Nice Rack likes the idea of a wide-range of travel options, and yeah, she's definitely not the one for Chris. Zoe hates the languages but loves the technology.

Zach frowns when it gets to him, and Zoe slides gracefully to the edge of the couch to poke him with her heel.

Zach rolls his eyes, and when he shifts on the floor, Chris can feel it along his entire side. "I --" Zach says, in a grand sort of way, "would pick mindmelds. Bonding."

Zoe makes an obnoxious aww'ing noise at him but Zach shrugs. Chris thinks about it; the idea of being attached to someone mentally and physically and it being forever is sort of terrifying, but -- not that he would admit it, at least not until after a couple more beers -- it's also sort of romantic, meaningful in a way that isn't physically possible to normal people.

It takes a moment and a shove from Zach for Chris to realize he's supposed to say what he likes, and his tongue feels dry from the beer in his mouth. "The same," he says, shrugging.

"Lame," Zach says, dragging the word out. Karl agrees, somewhat louder and more obnoxiously. Chris loves getting drunk with these people.

He shakes his head, shifts so he's facing Zach on the floor. "No," he says, "really. I agree. Mindmelding." He tries to say it seriously, because it's true, and he even waves his hands a little in what seems to be a good idea, but the expression Zach has on his face, makes Chris snort, a little.

"It's interesting," Chris continues, like he has to prove he means it. "_Romantic._"

"It's not romantic," Zach says, and he has an eyebrow half-raised in a way that makes Chris think they are about to fight. He reaches blindly behind himself to move his beer out of the way, just in case.

"It is," Chris argues, "it's commitment. It's getting to know someone like you couldn't know anyone else, it's really --"

Zach cuts him off, "Yes," he says, "but it's also not always used that way all --"

Chris already has a ton of argumentative points forming in his brain, and he currently has a five-to-three win ratio on he and Zach's recent big arguments, so he's fully prepared to win this one, but Zoe cuts them both short.

"God," she says, "you two could benefit from a mind meld, I swear." Chris is still looking at Zach, leveling him with a challenging glare, but he knows without looking that Zoe is rolling her eyes up at the ceiling.

"I don't think even that would help their constant bitching," John says, a little lazily.

"Not in the least," Karl agrees. "Now, couples counseling, maybe."

Chris gives up on his challenging glare, which was about to be extremely effective if the lateral angle of Zach's raised eyebrow was anything to judge by, and it was, and instead shakes his head at Zach instead.

Everyone stays quiet for a second, distracted from their -- very lame, Chris will have to tease Zoe about it on Monday when they get back on set -- party game. Karl and John are debating the pros and cons of Chris and Zach's working relationship being improved by a mindmeld and Zach huffs out a long breath that Chris can feel all over his face.

"A mindmeld," Zach says, slowly, and Karl and John stop talking, and Chris leans back a tiny bit to see Zach's face better. "I don't think that would work, do you Chris?"

It takes Chris a minute to respond to his name, because Zach looks like he's up to something -- Chris always likes to be in on whatever Zach is up to, but it takes him a minute to figure it out.

"Probably not," Chris says. "We could try, though." He says it because he wants to play along and to get everyone off their backs, and not because Zach is wrapping one hand around the back of Chris' neck to pull him closer while bringing his other hand up with his fingers spread out against Chris' temple.

Chris shuts his eyes, because that's how mindmeld-y things go. Zach's fingers are warm and a little rougher than Chris expects along his forehead.

"Think about me," Zach says, his voice low like he's making him visualize a beach scene for guided meditation, like he did last time they all got unreasonably drunk in the afternoon out by Karl's pool.

Chris does, although he doesn't mean to really focus on thinking completely about Zach. He thinks about long afternoons with Zach reading lines from a play script, asking Chris' opinion on diction and completely interrupting Chris' reading of _The Brothers Karamazov_ \-- _"Which makes you a bad host, anyway, so shut up and listen to this and tell me what sounds better,"_ Zach had said -- and also about how warm Zach always was, sitting close to him. He thought about Zach's lips, because they would be what Chris saw when he opened his eyes, his eyes, dark, and how he always tipped his head back a little when he laughed. How Chris kind of missed him more than he should have over the summer between the two films, stuck on opposite sides of the country and trying to figure out what was different about seeing Zach maybe once a week or calling him twice a week and not being able to see him at all.

"Always touched and never touching," Zach says, his fingers running in little circles, and Chris is vaguely aware of Anton covering a snort in the background.

Zach pauses, his fingers stilling. "I -- bonded from here on in mind and body --"

"And soul," Zoe calls out, laughing around the words. It all vaguely sounds like some new-generation wedding ceremony.

Chris can practically feel Zach's frown radiating off him, through his fingers. "I was getting there," Zach huffs, all overly-annoyed, and Chris laughs with his eyes still closed, Zach's fingers slipping over his skin to accomidate the movement.

"Mind, body, and _soul_, forever," Zach finishes. He doesn't take his fingers off right away.

"And forever," Chris adds with finality, because he feels like he needs to say something before the way he's leaning into Zach's fingers becomes obvious to everyone around them.

He blinks open his eyes when Zach takes his one hand away, slipping down over the top of Chris' cheekbone with the tips of his fingers before all the pressure disappears.

"How cute," Zoe says, and she claps.

"You should make out too. To, I don't know, seal the bond," John says, laughing around the neck of his beer. "Because that's how that shit always works."

"Or," Chris says, with a laugh that sounds a little funny, "because you are a dirty perverted man, Cho." He's acutely aware of how Zach hasn't moved his other hand, the one wrapped around his neck, fingers pressing in, and how their knees are sort of touching, hot through the denim of Chris' jeans.

Chris blinks up at Zach's face again, his mouth parted around a laugh, to get some back up. Zach does laugh, but he shrugs, too, and Chris definitely feels he's lost a little control over the situation when Zach's fingers curl into his hair and then their lips are touching, dry until Zach licks out, slick, sloppy wet with a tang of stale beer.

In the background Zoe hoots, loud, and Anton is saying something about someone getting a phone out. Zach laughs into Chris' mouth, the sound traveling through Chris in a way that is just a little too _good_, and Chris uses the hand he isn't leaning on to drag Zach forward, biting down on his bottom lip to give back what he's getting, rolling it between his own lips.

He realizes, somewhere in the back of his mind, that they are getting carried away, that he can't stop his hands from tilting Zach's chin up to the right angle, and Zach's other hand is pressing against his knee, hard. That kissing Zach feels like it's always been inevitable, like he can't stop, has to stop, has to --

Zach pulls away first, his breath escaping him in three sharp pants. He grins, wide and shit-eating, face loose like Chris rarely gets to see, like anyone gets to see, and he laughs, turning to Zoe, dropping his hands from Chris.

Chris leans back, trying to figure out how to get the air from his lungs out of his mouth, the hair on his arms standing a little on edge.

"How was that?" Zach asks, looking at Zoe but addressing the room at large.

Zoe claps again, slow, and most of the room joins in. Zach sits back on his heels and looks pleased with -- them or with himself, Chris doesn't know, he only knows he feels a little disoriented and a lot like he drank too much -- and also a little blurry around the edges.

The group settles down and Chris goes to get water from Zoe's kitchen, standing to find his feet are mostly asleep from being underneath him, but he stumbles forward anyway.

"Hey," Zach says, leaning against the counter top while Chris pours himself a glass of water, thinking about getting Zach one but feeling a little angry all at once. He followed Chris in, always walks so damn softly.

"Hey," Chris says, not looking at Zach, the word coming out a little rougher than he means it to.

"Don't be mad," Zach says, easy, leaning against the counter like it's nothing.

"I'm not mad," Chris says, automatic. He sounds mad.

Zach shrugs. "It was just --" he says. He gestures vaguely towards the living room, towards all the people.

Chris wishes, just a little, that it wasn't 'just' anything. It's a stupid, half-drunk thought though, so he just shrugs back at Zach, definitely not as easily. "Yeah," he says, "just, just."

Zach nods at him, not smiling but not frowning either.

"I'm going to get going," Chris says, making up his mind as he says it, swallowing half his glass of water and turning to walk out of his kitchen, more steady than he feels before Zach can say anything else. (Before Chris can look at his lips any longer, how they are still slick and wet, wet from Chris' mouth, red and a little swollen.)

"Are you okay to --" Zach calls out after him, but Chris already has his coat and is practically out the front door, and at least Zoe's place is laid out conveniently.

He's not running away. He's tired and his bed sounds like a fantastic idea and he wants to finish a chapter of his book before he really stops thinking straight. He'll wake up in the morning and nothing will be weird, and he won't be able to feel Zach's fingers on his neck after a nice long, hot, shower.

  
-

Chris wakes up slow in his bed, the room dark around him. Everything hurts, a little, achy, centered around his head.

He groans into his pillowcase, the cotton scratchy around his dry lips. His tongue feels too-big in his mouth, and fuck he hates hangovers. He didn't feel like he'd broken any drinking records by far, but his body seems to disagree, and it's with great effort that he drags himself out of a tangle of sheets and towards the shower.

In the shower he leans his head against the cool tiles, the spray pounding against the top of his spine, and that makes him feel a little better. He shuts his eyes, though, and remembers Zach -- Zach with his hands on Chris' face and his neck and his knee, his lips and a vague memory of Chris maybe making a few noises that he hopes were in his head.

He doesn't feel much better after that when he gets out of the shower. A liberal amount of aspirin and about a gallon of water don't do much either, so he spends the rest of the day on his couch with the blinds closed and one light on that he can finish his Kundera with, the book held as far away from his eyes as possible.

On Sunday he hurts when he wakes up, too, and it's definitely not a hangover. It's still stemming from a headache, deep in the back of his head, a little pressure on his sinuses. Chris has a really clean track record of not getting sick.

(Last time he got sick Zach was across the country and Chris had a play to do, but Zach found some stupid Hollywood delivery service to bring him hot soup and fucking flowers with a teddy bear holding a 'Get Well Soon!' heart.

Zach thought it was hilarious and laughed, scratchy over Chris' cell phone speakers, for about as long as Chris could stand having a the phone up to his aching head. Chris, though, tried to find the humor in Zach looking up a delivery service in LA from all the way in New York and specifically remembering Chris' favorite soup and sending him god damn _flowers_ that Chris couldn't throw away until they were brown and shriveled and dead on his dining room table -- but he mostly felt a little nauseated when he thought about it too hard, even long after he was fully recovered.)

He almost goes to the doctor before he has to check back onto the set the next day, but instead he spends another day in his living room, this time reading through the script a little obsessively, highlighting three copies in different places in different colors for emphasis and attaching notes, because it makes his head feel a little clearer.

He thinks about calling Zach but feels a little out of his comfort zone, and it makes his head hurt just a little bit more to think about Zach at all. Zach will deal with it on Monday, probably by not being awkward at all because kissing Chris probably wouldn't have meant anything at all to him. Zach might even make out with his friends with a bunch of people watching all the time -- Chris wouldn't know, he doesn't hang out with a lot of Zach's friends all that much. Maybe he should.

Chris doesn't feel all that better when he wakes up on Monday morning, and the dread that he could actually be sick, which would make a lot of people annoyed on the Trek set and probably make JJ frown in the creepily affecting way he has, feels very clear.

It doesn't help that Chris didn't sleep very well, stuck with images of skin behind his eyelids and a leftover feeling of sparking heat along his skin as he showers the tiredness and ache in his bones away. (Neither of which go very far.)

It is, of course, a blindingly bright day on the lot when Chris pulls up, armed with sunglasses and an extra-tall coffee as he walks towards his trailer to drop off his newly-obsessively-highlighted scrips for further scrutiny at a later date.

While he's walking up the few steps to his own trailer door, Zach's door opens next to him, a few feet away, and Chris pauses with his hand on the door handle to watch Zach walk out.

Zach is a little bent over, one hand shading his eyes from the sun while he shuts the door behind him. His mouth is set into a frown, and Chris knows Zach sometimes comes to set a little tired after weekends, especially if he didn't spend his morning doing yoga or meditating or doing a crossword on his commute -- whatever it is that Zach does to get himself cheerful in the morning that Chris hasn't yet mastered.

He looks, though, a lot like Chris feels (and probably looks; he had avoided mirrors pretty well so far this morning,) and Chris doesn't get through his trailer door before Zach turns around and notices him.

Zach opens his mouth once, then closes it. He laughs a little, low and tired. "I'm never drinking at Zoe's again," he says, "this is the worst --"

"Hangover ever," Chris finishes, agreeing, completely empathetic.

Zach smiles up at him, taking his hand off his head a little so Chris can see his eyes. Chris grins back, feeling mildly better, the pressure of his constant headache waning.

Zach looks a little surprised for a second, but his face relaxes. "Time to Vulcanize," he says, in some weird tone of voice that doesn't hit any of the marks Chris thinks Zach was going for.

"Right," Chris says, opening his trailer door, definitely feeling better now, "because that is now a verb."

"It could work as an adjective, too, if I'm not mistaken," Zach says, calling after Chris as Chris shuts the door. He rolls his shoulders back and grins a little to himself, glad that Zach knew how to handle the awkwardness of Zoe's party perfectly, just like Chris thought he would, and glad that his body has stopped aching as much. He won't have to go to the doctor after all, probably.

  
-

  
The day seems like it's going to go pretty well, but Chris knows after immeasurable amounts of hours clocked in on various sets and more than he can count logged just for Trek that things usually don't go the way they start out.

He starts off with a scene that just calls for him and a bunch of extras, mostly shots of him running. He's back in make-up after lunch, getting his foundation fixed and his hair combed down as he inhales a cup of coffee someone -- Zach -- had left with a smiley face note on his chair.

The after-lunch scene they start in on is on the bridge with most of the major players. Chris is mostly confident in his lines, and he'd started to get his headache back around lunch, but it dissipated once he got on the bridge set, sharing a bro-punch with John and a patented high five with Zach. (He ignored the way his fingers tingled after a little by grabbing his coffee and curling his fingers around, the cup still hot, and downing the dregs of it in one gulp.)

Chris has two lines before Zach comes in, and he nails them the first time, and then the second, and then he's repeating them for a tenth and a fourteenth take as Zach struggles with his own.

It's not that Chris isn't used to hours of takes that he easily loses count of, it's just -- it's an easy line, and he's starting to feel a little achy again, and he's sick of saying the same two lines over and over again, failing to deliver them as well the more he has to repeat them.

He's supportive, though, and even cracks a joke about green blood to keep JJ from freaking out from where he's bouncing off-set. Chris is biting the inside of his lip, though. He thinks, _god damn it, Zach, get your lines right, it's not that hard,_ repeating it a little like a mantra because it's calming to get out in his head and also because it's sort of like he's sending support vibes -- angry supportive vibes, but still -- in Zach's direction.

Except, as Chris is repeating it for a third time in his head on take twenty one, Zach turns towards him mid-line with his eyebrows knit together and his eyes narrowed.

"I'd appreciate a little fucking support," Zach says, clearly at Chris, and Chris backs up into the console behind him a little, shocked. He was supporting Zach by keeping quiet, what the --

"Seriously, you've had worse days, so keep your mouth shut and don't be such a dick," Zach says, glaring at Chris in a way that would be comical if Zach wasn't completely, inexplicably serious.

"Whoa, hey, calm down now," JJ says from the sidelines, because Zoe and John and Anton are staring at Chris with matching lost expressions.

Zach turns on JJ. "You could have told him to calm down a minute ago," he says. He jabs a finger in Chris' direction, and Chris frowns.

"What --" Chris starts, wondering if he said what he was thinking out loud, and how much of dick that would make him. To be fair, he's really tired, and --

"Let's take ten," JJ says, shaking his head. Zach walks off set before any of them really move, and Chris follows Zoe off towards the coffee machine.

"Did I -- hey, did I say anything back there?" Chris asks her, quietly near her back.

Zoe turns and hands him a hot cup, for which he sends her a small, grateful smile.

"I didn't hear anything," she says, peering over his shoulder. She shrugs. "He's frustrated, I guess. Hell, I'd be too after that many takes on one line."

Chris hums around his sip of coffee and she walks past him, hopefully in search of Zach to calm him down. Chris' sip doesn't go down smoothly, feels gritty along his throat, and his headache is back full force, enough that he has to squeeze his eyes shut with the pain.

  
-

  
They get back on set after about ten minutes, and Zach looks more relaxed, even if he won't look at Chris directly. Chris isn't going to apologize for something he didn't say, especially when all he wants to do is go home as soon as they finish the scene and take as much aspirin as humanly possible without going on suicide watch for his headache.

Zach hits his lines, although everyone in the scene sounds a little hesitant. They get through a clean take after three shots, though, and Chris knows instinctively that it's going to be a scene they'll have to re-shoot at some point, but JJ doesn't seem to want to press them, or probably more specifically Zach, on it, so they all call it a wrap early in the day.

Chris gets cleaned up fast out of his make-up and costume. He likes days where he isn't covered in a bunch of fake grime and blood and bruises; there seems to be a numerous number of non-beat-up days this time around, and Chris is definitely enjoying it. Zach has to stick around longer, the process of getting his ears off and the bits of his Vulcan brows practically qualifying as a minor out-patient procedure.

Chris doesn't particularly feel like waiting around for Zach to finish like he usually does, not with the events on the bridge set, and not with the aches from the weekend working their way back down his body, so he leaves.

He half expects Zach to text him an apology or maybe come over while Chris is debating where to order-in from, but he doesn't, and sleep definitely doesn't come easy that night. Chris tosses and turns, in more pain again, distressing pain, and when he does slip into dreams they are of skin and the familiar weight of fingers, images that stick with him through his next morning shower.

The next day Chris doesn't catch Zach on set until he's out of the make-up trailer, early enough that most of the cast and crew are relaxing while the first shot of the day is being set up.

Zach is settled on top of a milk crate, in full Spock garb, sitting with his legs cross on top of one another, bent over a Scrabble board with Anton, who is frowning. Chris takes a minute to grin at the picture it makes, Zach's serious expression at the board made somewhat comical by his Starfleet uniform and severe eyebrows.

Chris walks closer, only a little hesitantly, a little bit of the ache in his neck and down his arms fading away as he leans over Zach's body to look at his tiles.

If Chris were Zach, he'd use the second 't' on the word 'fretting' laid out on the board with Zach's letters and make _'triadic'_. Chris does the math in his head against a few other words he spots, and it's definitely the best option.

Zach turns, craning his neck up towards Chris. "Hey," he says, "no cheating!"

Chris rolls his eyes. "I'm just looking at your tiles."

Zach sighs. "But now I can't use that word, and it's a good one."

Chris frowns at him, can feel the confusion on his face. "What word?" he asks, at the same time Anton asks, "What?"

"Tri-" Zach starts, but shakes his head. He turns back and, after a pause, lays out his tiles to spell triadic.

Chris stares down at the board. That's -- weird. "Good word," he says, voice a little strange.

"Yeah, thanks," Zach says, except Chris is looking at his face and his mouth isn't moving.

"You're --" Chris starts, but stops, because Zach didn't actually say anything. Or he did. Or.

"You heard that!" Zach says, "thank fuck. I'm not going crazy."

Chris gapes, just a little. He knows it's not a good look on him -- he's tried seeing in the mirror -- but he lets his mouth fall open a little, anyway. "Heard what?" he asks, just to be sure.

"Guys?" Anton asks, slowly. Chris ignores him, Zach does too.

"I said," Zach says, "'Yeah, thanks.'"

Chris leans back on his heels a little. "No, you didn't," he says, slightly unsure.

Zach grins, quick and a little wild. "Exactly!" he says. Chris thinks his face probably looks a little like Zach's, except he doesn't want to check.

"Uh," Anton says, breaking Chris away from staring at Zach. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," Zach says, not turning away from Chris, "I've, we -- we have to go for a second."

"Follow me," Zach says, except he doesn't, and Chris' headache is completely gone but he also feels a little like he's about to throw up.

Instead of responding, Chris nods and follows, trying to match Zach's quick pace as he gets up from his milk crate and heads off set.

  
-

  
Zach shuts the door to his trailer behind them. After a pause, he locks it. "I feel like I took crazy pills this morning," Zach says, which, after Chris thinks about it, sounds pretty accurate.

Zach sinks down on the little couch in his trailer and Chris sits on the swivel-y chair across from it. (He never got a swivel-y chair in his trailer, but that was because the prop people clearly liked Zach more from the get-go, which was unfair, but Chris couldn't blame them.)

"I think they like us about equally," Zach says, thoughtfully.

Chris swallows, once. "Don't -- fuck, don't do that."

Zach laughs, his head tipping back with it.

Zach bounces where he's sitting, just a tiny bit. "It's really weird," he says. Chris doesn't feel like they are on the same page, because hearing what someone else is thinking is not exactly cause for excitement, it's more like cause for a nice long visit to the mental hospital. Or rehab, depending on how Chris has been spending his weekends. He feels like he's pretty good on both fronts, though, minus this, but.

"Stop it," Zach says, frowning at him. "I just had a massive headache that finally went away and I don't want you giving me another one."

"Demanding much," Chris says, frowning back. His headache has almost completely disappeared, too, which is -- extremely nice. Chris relaxes back into the chair and spins in a circle, once.

"You have the mentality of an eight year old," Zach says, sounding somewhat fond in a way that Chris always tries to keep out his voice, even though it sometimes leaks through when Zach is doing something particularly endearing or stupid. Chris knows instinctively that Zach didn't say that out loud, though, and the words sort of wash over him warmly in accompaniment to their almost-fond tone. It makes Chris roll his shoulders back.

"Weird," he says.

"Indeed," Zach says.

"I don't want to talk about it," Chris says, faster than he can think it. It's a little Twilight Zone-ish, and possibly a little Star Trek-ish, if Chris wants to analyze it -- neither of which should be things actually effecting his daily life, so Chris stops thinking about it.

"Or think about it," Chris amends. He does want to think about it, except not before an entire day on set, because he's pretty sure the psychoanalysis would involve things he's not ready to tackle this early in the morning.

"Fair enough," Zach says, either to Chris' words or thoughts Chris isn't sure. He closes his eyes briefly.

Chris leans back in the chair. He feels a lot better than he has in days, and he definitely doesn't think about how that could be connected to whatever is going on right now. "I bet," he says, words coming out slow and lazier than he realizes he feels, "we could play the most awesome pranks with this."

Zach laughs, low. When Chris cracks his eyes open, Zach has his own closed, laying back on the couch.

"Tomorrow," Chris amends, "we can definitely prank tomorrow."

"Oh god," Zach says, stretching. Chris likes the way Zach looks when he stretches, fluid, long.

Zach cracks an eye open in Chris' direction and Chris looks pointedly away, assuming Zach didn't hear that thought. Chris really has no idea how this works.

"JJ is going to kill us if we fall asleep on set," Zach says, yawning. Chris feels tired through to his bones, relaxed in the chair. When Zach stretches again, Chris feels a little ache along his lower back like he has to stretch, too.

"I don't think he'd kill us yet," Chris says. "Maybe after the movie. Maybe he'd get one of the freaky District 9 monsters to come after us."

Zach stares at him for a second and then laughs. It echoes, a little. "The monsters that had you -- _I'm not hiding against your shoulder, Zach, really, I'm just itching my nose on your shirt sleeve for a long period of time, several times in a row_ \-- like that?"

"That's unfair," Chris says. He wasn't scared, he'd just had two-too-many glasses of Zach's favorite red wine and Zach was warm and his living room was dark and it was completely okay for Chris to be a little bit freaked. That was just a compliment to JJ's movie making skills, is all.

"JJ wasn't there. Your point is invalid," Zach says, grinning. Chris kicks out with his foot towards Zach on the couch and misses by a lot.

"Stop reading my mind," Chris says. Standing up so he can better beat up Zach, because it makes him feel good.

Zach laughs, breathless, and shoves Chris away after getting in a few aimless punches of his own. "I think," Zach says, while Chris is straightening out his uniform shirt, "it's more like your thoughts are in my head, not that I'm reading your mind."

Chris frowns and grabs Zach's hand when he extends it to help pull him off the couch. "I'm not getting a lot from you," he says, and thinks briefly about turning it into a joke, but he's never been good with imitating blank silence cricket noises, so he doesn't try.

"I can shield my mind," Zach says, deadpan.

"Fucking Vulcans," Chris agrees. When they leave the trailer, the sun doesn't seem as bright as it did when Chris' head hurt, and he can feel Zach brushing up against his back as he walks, and it's like he's feeling it double, but it could also be his thick uniform material, so he doesn't think about it.

  
-

  
When Chris gets home he does not:

1\. Google spontaneous mind reading and telepathy;

2\. Exit out of all his tabs, slightly scared;

3\. Find another Star Trek porno he didn't know existed and ignore Zach's call while he finishes watching it, because Zach would totally print out gigantic posters from Staples about Chris' weird Trek porn addiction to post around set, just because he happened to know about the first time and had already threatened to do it;

4\. Freak out a little while chopping up onions, because Zach could _read his mind_;

and 5. he really, really didn't decide to de-stress by sitting on his couch after dinner and jerking off.

He does do all of that, though. The jerking off part is nice. He thinks about the weird Star Trek porn, because the guy playing Kirk was kind of hot -- and didn't look much like him, so he didn't feel too guilty about basically jerking off to himself -- and that led to thinking about Zach. That's how a lot of his jerking off ended up, but the one time he went to a therapist, she had said some bullshit about sexual fantasies being completely normal, and that he could think about anything and no one would know and it was okay, so that was sort of his life motto -- his life hyphen jerking off motto? Whatever -- and usually he felt okay about it.

This time though, his hand felt a little too-intense, and it was easy to twist under the ridge of his head and think about Zach's lips, knowing just exactly how they felt on his own, fuck, and think of them red and swollen like in Zoe's kitchen and Chris came faster than he meant to, body going liquid between the cushions of the couch.

He gets about three minutes to stretch in post-orgasm haze before his phone rings, Zach's caller ID -- him flipping off Chris' phone camera with a cheesy grin on his face, the Sydney Opera House in the background -- flashing insistently on the screen.

Chris answers the call near the last ring and tries to clear his head and sound normal when he says, "Hey, hi."

"You just got off," Zach says, and his voice is low and scratchy on the other end of Chris' phone.

Chris almost, nearly drops his phone. His pants are still down around his ankles and he feels more naked than he should sitting in his own living room.

"I could _feel_," Zach says, and Chris feels a little insane. His dick is getting hard between his legs again, even though he's not touching himself, and Zach makes a tiny, barely audible noise on his end of the phone call.

"Shit," Chris says. Or thinks, he isn't sure. "You're --" because he is definitely feeling something, something not just himself. One of his hands is on his thigh and the other is on his phone, definitely not --

Zach laughs, low and surprised and a little pleased. Chris feels it down his spine and he shoves his phone down, hangs up the call with a touch of his finger and he squeezes his eyes shut, not freaking out, not really.

He goes to shower, presses his face against the tile wall, and he falls asleep earlier than he means to, tangled in his sheet but not in any pain, catching up on the sleep he's been missing out on for days.

  
-

  
Chris definitely does not talk to Zach about their phone call, and they do surprisingly well siting side-by-side in the make-up trailer.

"What's the word --" Zach says, halfway into a conversation about the heroic ideal with an intern, and Chris bends his neck back so Melanie can pluck a few stray hairs off his eyebrow.

_Symbiotic_, Chris thinks.

Zach grins over at him before he gets shoved back into the right angle in his chair, two people wrestling one ear onto the side of his head.

Chris gets a warm feeling, a little sort of trickle at the top of his spine, sort of like _thanks_, and he rolls his shoulders back and closes his eyes, letting Zach's conversation wash over him, the low tone of his voice sort of comforting.

They have two scenes to shoot today, both of which require Chris and Zach on set at mostly the same time. It throws Chris off for a take or two, hearing Zach's thought-process, the way he plans out his line delivery, how he is going to move; Chris just doesn't think, he does, he moves.

By the fourth take of their first scene, though, Chris finds it helpful -- knowing where Zach is going to stop walking or when he's going to take a pause in between his words, exactly where his line is going to end. He starts thinking a little about what he's saying, too, pre-mediating his movements and he catches Zach's small and quick grin and then they start trading back and forth.

JJ looks a little impressed (it doesn't take a lot to make him look excited, but impressed -- that's a whole different magnitude of expression,) by the time they get through the second scene in three takes. He reviews the angles and Chris feels a little proud, of himself and also of Zach, and Zach presses up against the side of his arm briefly, the noise of the set fading to a lull before he steps away.

"We're awesome," Chris says, happy to be leaving with the afternoon still young, heading off set to change. Zach grins at him but doesn't say anything, and the silence between them is louder than it should be.

Chris hears, and sort of feels, something a little bit like cold dread washing over him, Zach saying, _shit_, as they keep walking.

"What?" Chris asks, even though the word doesn't really make it out, and Zach pauses, turns around before they hit the steps of the make-up trailer.

"I think --" Zach starts.

"You think a lot of things," Chris says, lightly. He feels a little off-balance, in his footing and in his head.

Zach is staring at him, though. He looks a little caught. "I'm sorry about calling you," he says, in somewhat of a rush, the words tumbling out from his lips too-fast for Chris to catch all of them, but his mind fills in the blanks.

"It's --" Chris says, but stops. It wasn't okay, it was. He freaked out, a little, rightfully. He got in the shower afterwards and tried to not think about it but came in his hand, again, too quickly while he was too-sensitive, aching with it.

He stops thinking, doesn't want Zach to know that part of him -- he does, he wants Zach to know his entire body, has for, fuck, over a year, but not through his thoughts. Except Zach is still staring at him, and they are standing comically in the middle of the studio lot. When Chris stops thinking his own thoughts, though, he gets the sensation of other thoughts, of things fleetingly passing over his mind like they don't want to be noticed, so he closes his eyes instead of staring at Zach, and breathes in a little to sharply when he focuses.

He can see himself, vaguely, hands and lips and it's almost like repeats of the dreams he wakes up to on the inside of his eyelids, except instead of being mostly anonymous limbs and mouths this is clearly Zach, clearly Zach on him, his forehead on the upwards arch of Chris' back, taking him from behind, and --

"Fuck," Zach says, and when Chris opens his eyes Zach is stumbling backwards just a little. "Don't -- that's not for us, that's not for you to --"

Chris can feel himself frowning, his nerves on edge, a little, like maybe he was being touched when he had his eyes closed. "What?" he asks, unsure, "was that your thoughts, was --" he's almost uncertain, wondering if it was him, projecting somehow.

"It shouldn't have been," Zach says, all of the sudden sounding angry, face twisted tight, too-quick a change. His teeth are gritted when he says it, like he really didn't want to be Chris in his thoughts like that, and before Chris can say anything at all Zach is in the make-up trailer, door swinging shut behind him.

Chris goes home without changing and doesn't even care if he gets his costume dry-cleaned over the weekend or not, feeling hurt and sore all over like before, just when he had been feeling fine again. He feels more than that, though, too, some sort of residual -- disgust, a feeling of being ashamed -- that he knows doesn't belong to him and that feels the worst of it all.

 

-

  
Chris is -- angry. His head feels like someone took a hammer to it, like he spent the afternoon drinking and took a nap only to wake up to a horrible hangover in the same day.

While he drives home everything is a little blurry, his stomach a little nauseated. He feels a little annoyed at himself, although he doesn't know why -- it's not his fault Zach was thinking about the things he was; Chris knows that, he's gone over every detail in his head and he knows he wasn't the one thinking then, he knows those thoughts, those images were ones coming from Zach.

It's not like Chris made this all happen in the first place, if anything, Zach did, with his weird mind-melding finger position and his soothing yoga visualizing voice. He shouldn't have been thinking about -- Chris' mouth on his dick, his hands, biting down Chris' spine. Not with Chris around, at least -- Chris thought about those things, first with nameless faces and then with Zach, but he didn't -- They wouldn't work out.

Zach, though, didn't need to be so, so -- ridiculous, so offended about it. So he thought about how Chris' skin would taste under his tongue. It wasn't a big deal. (It was, not in how Zach treated it, like he shouldn't be having that thoughts, and god, Zach of all people, but like Chris was making him think them. Like he didn't want to be having them in the first place. Like it would be so horrible for Chris to be laid out underneath him.)

Chris burns a little rubber pulling into his driveway, a little proud of his Prius for leaving tire marks on the concrete before, vaguely feeling like he's going to throw up on the pavement once he steps outside.

He lays down on the couch, first, but the feeling doesn't subside, as much as Chris thinks about ways to stop feeling so much pain. He feels a little empty, too, which is stupid; he doesn't feel much except resentment towards Zach right now, and it's not the sort of vague hollowness he'd felt during the summer, like maybe he was missing out on important things, important Zach-related things.

He props Henry Miller open on the counter, reads about angry sex and it burns a little bit in the back of his throat. He waits, bent halfway over the sink while his (probably expired) Hearty Man meal thaws out in the microwave. It doesn't make him feel better.

  
-

  
Chris is sitting on his couch when he gets the call for the party at Marmont, more of a networking thing but with an open bar, and Chris screws his face up and pulls his phone away from his ear while he gets the guest list info.

He pulls on a sweater and new jeans and takes two Tylenols too many and decides to go, rolling his shoulders back against the pain.

It's not a very good plan. Chris wants to go drink, he wants to stop feeling like shit for things he didn't know; a feeling, he realizes belatedly on the couch, that is probably coming from Zach somehow between their -- minds. Chris doesn't want to feel shitty at himself, because that makes no sense at all, and it just makes him a little bit angrier at Zach.

He walks into the party with his shoulders up, as much as they want to sag, and heads straight to the bar. He beelines there, doesn't give anyone he knows more than a nod and hopes for a second that Zach isn't there. He feels a little strange, a little light for a second, and instinctively knows that Zach is nowhere near the Chateau. It's a weird feeling, but it leaves him with a satisfied if not rueful bit of a grin.

There is an empty stool next to a girl Chris feels like he's seen once before, maybe in PR for something, and she shoots him a polite smile when he sits. He looks at her while he orders his drink.

Three drinks later and Chris feels a little hazy, a little fuzzy. The ache in his bones is lighter and he doesn't feel like he's about to throw up, which is a plus.

The girl -- her name is Annie, hopefully, because that's what Chris calls her -- hasn't moved from her seat in the time it's taken Chris to finish his third drink. She's getting progressively more attractive, too, looking more and more like a phase Chris thought he grew out of but apparently didn't, not tonight at least.

Her dress is nice, low cut enough that Chris can appreciate the rise of her chest when she breathes, and tailored to her waist enough that Chris can trace the flare of her hips with his eyes, think about how they'd work for him, how he'd probably be able to hold her there, dig his fingers in a little, maybe.

He hasn't taken a girl home in -- in a long time. He hasn't actually needed to, but he takes her back with him, making the drive sort of blindly.

Her laugh isn't nice, not in a way that warms Chris through his bones or sobers him up, but her moan isn't bad. She's breathy, too, and Chris feels progressively worse the more he touches her, head splitting from pain and skin burning a unpleasantly white-hot where she drags her nails down his back.

Chris thinks vaguely, abstractly about how this could have been him and Zach tonight. How Zach's nails would feel dragging down his back, how his late night stubble would feel dragging down the inside of Chris' neck, maybe his thigh. He can't stop thinking once he starts, about Zach's hands, his mouth, his everything; how this is all so horrible, how Chris aches a little like he _knows_ how Zach would feel against him, even though he doesn't. Like he can feel Zach's hands on him, wide on his shoulders, instead of her small ones.

Chris almost doesn't make it; she comes before him, and it takes concentration to finish. He feels a little numb, and he almost passes out before he gets her back out of the door in a cab from the aches running through his bones, the distinct sense of -- something, something he can't place -- racing all over his skin.

He falls asleep face-first on his mattress, four am, and spends most of the weekend in the same position.

  
-

  
Chris doesn't look at Zach when he get on set. The make-up team has a hard time with the bags under his eyes, dark circles that fell like punches. It wasn't Chris' fault; it was Zach who wouldn't let him sleep, made him feel restless and strange the entire weekend.

JJ says something to him as he walks by and Chris only notices belatedly, turning around a few feet away to JJ staring after him with his mouth half-open on a word.

He doesn't look at Zach, but Zach comes up to him anyway, and he has to look. Zach doesn't look much better than Chris; he's a little gray, in a way the foundation can't even cover. The lines around his mouth are more defined, his nostrils flared.

Chris doesn't get that good of a look, though, because Zach leans back and swings at him, punches him square in the jaw.

Chris staggers back because, what the fuck, and he says as much, ducking down when Zach goes to punch him again.

"You --" Zach says, "I could fucking feel that. You with whoever it was, and I couldn't do anything, and --"

Chris bites his own lip. "If it's so disgusting with me, is it worse with me and someone else?" he asks, not the best way he means to articulate his thoughts, but he message hits Zach in some form, because he swings another punch near Chris' face as he's talking, and Chris backs up into an electrical pole, wide-eyed. Karl grabs Zach from behind, though, drags him back.

"That's not --" Zach says, stilling under the weight of Karl's grasp.

"Zach --" Chris says, because it's the first word that comes to him. He wants Zach to elaborate just as much as he wants to punch him back, just as much as he wants to grind their teeth together, bite at Zach's bottom lip until it bleeds and he gives under Chris' palms. When he looks at Zach's face where Karl has an arm thrown over his chest, it's twisted, a little ugly. It's not anger, because Chris knows that look, it's something else, different, and it washes over Chris in a way that makes Chris slide down the poll he's leaning against and stay there, right on the floor.

They are both sent home, after, like teenagers. Chris drives home with an ice pack pressed against his jaw, feeling more like shit than he did over the weekend, which is definitely saying something.

  
-

Chris takes a higher dose of aspirin and still has a headache, a biting pain at the back of his skull. The nail marks on his back from the girl on Friday night burn when he sits back against the couch, even though they shouldn't even be there anymore.

He calls Zach, he doesn't mean to but his phone is in his hand and he hits Zach's speed dial number before he can think it over. He's greeted by Zach's cheerful automated voicemail service, and wishes it was Zach's real voice instead.

"I'm not sorry," Chris starts, and that's a hell of a way to start a message, but he feels justified. His jaw fucking hurts. "I just -- you know what? I don't get what is going on and you should stop being an asshole and pick up your phone, because I know you carry it everywhere."

He hangs up, annoyed. It takes him fifteen minutes to send two texts, less abrasive than the voice mail, the latter of which is just a question mark.

Zach doesn't answer and Chris sleeps fitfully without his sheets on the mattress.

  
-

  
He deals with the tense coil of his spine, the stiffness of his shoulders, the lack of focus. It's a job. They've got two months left of filming and Chris is going to get through it, even if Zach doesn't want to.

It doesn't have to mean anything that Chris looks at his couch when he gets home and thinks about how Zach always liked the right side of it, how he was always knocking his beer into Chris' hand or his thigh because he talked with his left hand, and the touch was always stupidly welcome.

They don't have many scenes or shots together during the next week, something which Chris is grateful for. He feels like it's probably intentional, and the one quick bridge scene they have together goes fast, three takes, awkward and not on-spot, but JJ calls time for the second scene set-up, and looks sort of reluctantly pained about it. Chris knows they'll have to re-shoot that scene, too, and he doesn't think about how it will go if he and Zach don't have their shit together by then.

Three months is a long time, he thinks.

Somewhere in the back of his mind -- a sort of warm, familiar brush -- he gets agreement, reluctantly given.

He thinks Zach's name as forcefully as he can, even though he doesn't actively mean to. His back is turned from the direction Zach walked off set in, but it doesn't matter, Chris doesn't get anything in return. He aches a little more, with that, and it feels worse.

Everyone gives him advice, which is sort of laughable. Chris wants to say, "sorry, buying Zach some flowers with a card that says: _sorry I can read your mind and sort of feel what you feel, too, guess that sucks when you don't want anything to do with me and I'm sort of half in love with you!_"

Chris would like to see the face on the floral arrangement attendant that had to write out that particular card though, and that almost makes it worth taking up Karl's vague idea (Chris had filled in the blanks on the card in his head, of course,) like it's just another prank war between him and Zach, but. He always liked being on Zach's team instead of against him during those, anyway, and -- Chris isn't about to apologize.

He starts reading Tolstoy around the set, almost accidentally, in the free space he has to try and forget about how sore he is all over, and it's not until he's halfway through Anna Karenina that he realizes Zach is giving him _looks_, because it's the book he was carrying around on the day Chris went to audition for the first movie.

The book gets him through until Friday and Zoe fills in the gaps where Chris can't read while trying to stay in his headspace for Kirk -- acting like everything is fine, even though he can see the way she bites her lip when Zach walks by them, or when Chris walks by when she's talking animatedly to Zach.

He misses the cast all together and, if the hollow feeling that is making it progressively harder and harder to eat is anything go by, he also misses Zach a fucking lot. Chris' life sucks.

  
-

  
Chris isn't sure how he gets through the week, although the stern talking-to given to him by the Paramount production team and JJ and an investor sober him up for a while, enough that he even pours a second cup of coffee at the machine when he feels Zach behind him and leaves it on the table.

He gets through it, though. He has a bruise on his jaw from Zach's fist, tender when he presses his own knuckles to it, fitting them to the space Zach's hand had occupied.

Zoe is having another twice-monthly Friday night party, which Chris in no way commits to, but feels a little obligated to go to. He's been dragging down the set all week, and as much as he wants to go home and curl up in his bed and shut all the blinds, he also wants to stop letting however Zach is feeling have over-bearing control of how he lives.

Zach is going up the steps into his trailer just as Chris is coming out, done for the week, and they pause on the little platforms before the door, facing each other a few feet and a lot more mental space apart.

"Zach," Chris says, hesitant, unsure with what he's actually going to follow the word up with. When he says Zach's name, his body relaxes, noticeably, if not a lot.

The corner of Zach's mouth turns up, slowly but not very much. "Chris," he says back, a little dryly, but Chris' body relaxes more, like Zach really said his name with warmth.

They look at each other for a few seconds, both of them caught with their doors open but neither completely in or out of their respective trailers.

"You finished your book," Zach says, half around a sigh. He looks tired, his shoulders slumping the longer he stands still, the bags around under his eyes like matching punches. Chris doesn't mean to, but he feels a little bad, feels a little like he wants to curl up on his couch and have Zach fall asleep on his thigh like the time Zach had come over right after his flight from New York and they had tried to watch _Great Expectations_.

(Chris had been more comfortable than anyone had any right to be with the weight of Zach's head on his thigh causing his nerve endings to fall asleep, to spark all the way down his leg.)

"Again, yeah," Chris says. The book is tucked under his arm, finished, heavy.

_Are you --?_ Chris thinks, even thought he doesn't mean to. It's open ended.

Zach nods. It could mean anything. "I don't remember falling asleep on your leg," Zach says, quietly.

Chris feels the rest of his body relax, though his headache is still present. "Seven months ago," he says, because it was -- seven months and four days, and Chris doesn't know why he knows that but he does. He just remembers feeling pleased in a way he didn't want to think too hard about that Zach was back in LA, if only for a little while.

Zach nods, once, and frowns. Neither of them say anything but Chris can feel a touch of -- something -- along his mind, something he knows didn't come from him. Zach slips fully inside his trailer and Chris shuts the door to his own, walks to his car and sits in front of the steering wheel for longer than necessary, almost falling asleep against it.

  
-

  
There are more people at Zoe's house this time around. Chris can tell when he pulls up just by the amount of cars parked outside, and most of their group carpool. His head is pounding and he doesn't see Zach's car around, didn't actually expect to, but Zoe grabs him at the door, provides him with a glass of wine and steers him to the empty couch in the living room, pressing her lips to his temple chastely when he sits.

"Just hang out," she says, "relax."

He almost laughs at that -- relaxing is pretty high on his life priority list right now, but it's also one of the hardest things to make happen. He grins as wide as he can up at her though and takes a sip of her wine, cheap party stuff, but good anyway. He sits and doesn't socialize except to blindly punch up at Karl when he comes by and ruffles his hair from above.

It's a much quieter party, although most of the guests trickle out to Zoe's backyard. John is grilling and Chris hasn't been eating much, but he vaguely hopes someone will bring him a burger.

Chris almost, almost relaxes enough while listening to the muted noise of dozens of conversations and occasional laughter that he dozes off. For a minute he thinks he's sleeping when he hears Zach's voice, quietly cutting through the haze.

"I don't know what's worse," Zach says, "that I've turned you into a drug addict, an alcoholic, or a socially awkward guy who sleeps at parties."

Chris blinks up at where Zach is standing in front of him, angled a little like he's trying to decide if he should sit on the couch. Chris shuffles over a little, body heavy, and Zach sits.

"The first two would have come with time," Chris says. He feels like Zach is touching him along his neck, on his knee, but when he looks down there are at least four inches of space between their legs.

Zach nods. "That's the price of growing old in L.A.," he agrees.

Chris smiles, slightly. "I completely blame you for the last one, though," he says.

Zach laughs, and for the first time in a while it doesn't sound empty or forced or like the times Chris laid in bed and tried to remember how full and warm Zach's laugh really was. "I'm not ready to accept all the blame," Zach says, suddenly a little more serious -- Chris can feel it -- "but I'll shoulder some."

Chris closes his eyes and has a hard time opening them. "What about you?" he asks. "I don't think I've heard you use a three syllable word in a week. What will everyone think? I'm sure I'm being blamed for that misfortune."

Zach breathes out, sort of like another laugh, and he leans forward with it, but he keeps going until his head is against Chris' shoulder, a heavy weight, resting there.

"This sort of thing doesn't happen," Zach says, warm into Chris' shoulder through the material of his shirt.

It takes Chris a minute to realize Zach is talking about the whole mind-melding-thing, because his first thought is _us_. That they aren't meant to happen.

"We must be really lucky," Chris says. It's all he can come up with. Zach's breath is warm on his shoulder, still, the weight of his head comforting and so, so welcome. Most of Chris' headache disappears.

  
-

  
Chris almost, almost falls asleep against Zach's head. It's stupid and comfortable and welcome, and Chris can't find it in himself to be angry at all, mostly because he's glad to not be in pain for the first time in a week. Again.

Zach shakes him to consciousness, though. His hand on Chris' shoulder is warm, heavy, and it's almost like Chris can feel the light touch down his entire arm.

"We're not going to say sorry," Zach says, and Chris wakes up all the way at that, blinking at Zach.

"I'm not," Chris says, leaving it open ended. Zach should apologize.

Zach shakes his head. "I didn't mean for you to see what you saw," Zach says, "I didn't mean to call you, I didn't mean for this to happen, I didn't mean --"

Chris doesn't want to hear all the things Zach _didn't_ mean. He wants to hear what he _did_ mean. He presses two fingers to Zach's lips to get him to stop talking, and Zach does. His lips are dry and a little rough on Chris' fingertips, warm enough that Chris drags his fingers down, lets Zach take the tips of them between his lips and suck them in, light pressure. Chris' eyes roll back, just a little, because -- it's his fingers and it's Zach's _mouth_, but he inhales and takes his fingers back.

"What did you mean, then?" Chris asks. Somewhere in his mind that question is important.

"What you saw," Zach says. "I -- that wasn't new." He hesitates, and Chris can feel his apprehension like it's Chris' own thought and feeling, and maybe it is with the way it's prickling up and down his skin, present in the back of his mind.

"I thought I was thinking it first," Chris says, somewhat awkwardly. Zach looks a little lost. Their hands are touching, now, fingers moving together in twists, and Chris only realizes belatedly that he can feel the heat from their hands spreading everywhere, that he didn't even realize they were touching. "It wasn't a new -- thought -- for me either," he says, choosing his words carefully. The visual was new, different, not from the perspective he usually thinks about, but he doesn't elaborate.

"So we've been pretty idiotic for two years, then," Zach says, filling in the blanks.

"A year and a half," Chris says, because it took him a while to realize, to want Zach's hand to linger on his shoulder while he talked. To want to stay up all night in hotel rooms across the world on the off-chance they might fall asleep on the same hotel bed together and wake up tangled and warm.

Zach breathes in and then grins, small. "Two years and -- fourteen days. Maybe seventeen. There are a few days I have no memory of, around the vicinity of Australia and Tokyo."

Chris grins, pleased and little -- still apprehensive, but something else. Zach's hands feel strong over his own. "John is going to write a book about the Tokyo leg of the tour and get a million dollars for it and then we'll blackmail him into buying us things," he says. Chris has actually planned it all out, although it doesn't feel like the right time to share.

Zach laughs, grinning fully, quick now. He steals Chris' wine glass and finishes it, lips curling up at the taste. Chris presses his thumb down the line of Zach's jaw to feel him swallow.

  
-

  
Karl comes in while Chris and Zach are sort of stupidly staring at each other, but to his credit, he doesn't laugh. He's wearing an apron that Chris hopes matches John's and he hopes Zoe gets a picture, because he's pretty sure it will be a picture that needs to be blown up and posted all over the set.

"Nice apron," Zach says, like he's reading Chris' mind, and -- oh. Zach squeezes one of his hands.

"Having a nice time soul-bonding in the empty living room?" Karl asks, finally laughing, just a little.

"We are," Zach says, deadpan.

Chris looks down at how they are still sort of massaging each other's hands, how their knees are pressed together and he thinks about how empty he had been feeling, thinks, _soulbonding_, and then -- no, no way -- just as Zach goes through the same process.

"Well," Karl says, leaning a little awkwardly on the word. Probably because Chris isn't looking at him at all and Zach isn't either. "There are burgers, or -- there is a spare bedroom? You'll have to ask Zoe about that one, though. And I don't want to know."

Karl goes to leave, but pauses. "And don't tell JJ, either, he might try and make it a subplot."

"They already tried that," Zach says, without looking, "there were issues keeping it a subplot."

Chris doesn't actually know if Zach is serious, but Karl snorts and walks out, shutting the patio sliding glass doors behind him.

"I'm --" Zach says, into the sudden silence. It definitely sounds and feels like an apology, even though the leaves it hanging.

"Me too," Chris says, surprised to feel he means it. He's sorry for whatever Zach was going through, for sleeping with someone else, for making it all worse, probably. It's a weird and satisfying thing to say.

Zach grins, wide this time.

"Are you hungry?" Zach asks, low in his throat.

Chris probably should be, but he really isn't. "Not really," he says. They both pause, but Chris gets the message, the sudden feeling that sparks through him, makes Zach tip his throat back and laugh.

"I'm closer," Chris says, quietly. Zach lets go of his hands, brings his own up and wraps one around the back of Chris' neck, uses the other to tilt his face up by his chin. They kiss, dry and slow and a little too chaste, but a mirror image of the first one, two weeks ago in Zoe's living room. Full circle. Chris laughs, open mouthed and barely a breath against Zach's lips, scrapes his teeth lightly against Zach's bottom lip.

"So, my place?" Chris asks, and Zach hums, deep in agreement.

_Yes,_ Zach thinks, low and inside, and it's more than a word because Chris not only hears it in his head but he also _feels_ it, inside and out. He stands too fast from the couch and gets a little lightheaded. Zach caches him, nuzzles into the dip of his throat, just a little, and drags his teeth lightly down the skin there.

Chris lets out a noise, even though he doesn't mean to, and he's not entirely sure if it's internal or out loud, but Zach pulls him close and then wraps his fingers around Chris' wrist, uses the loop of them to pull Chris forward through Zoe's kitchen and then out her front door.

The night air hits cool and refreshing against Chris' skin. It wakes him up all over, not just where Zach is touching him. They almost don't make it in the car, because Zach comes around to his passenger door and goes to open it for Chris -- Chris bats him away, because it's stupid, they haven't changed, their dynamic hasn't really changed at all and Zach doesn't need to be opening doors for Chris -- and Zach ends up pressing Chris back against the car door instead, dragging his lips down Chris' throat and then kissing him, sliding a leg between his thighs and licking into his mouth, slick and dirty.

It's with a lot of effort that Chris reaches behind himself to open the door, because they will get home faster that way, and he manages it with his other hand digging into Zach's ass in a way that makes Zach press his hips forward with a heady amount of pressure.

Chris almost falls through the small space where the door opens and into the seat, but Zach catches him again, laughs at him and rolls his eyes, but the feeling of fondness, of something more that washes over Chris' skin and it doesn't break the mood at all. He settles into his seat with just enough time to pull the buckle on before Zach is backing out of his parking space on Zoe's lawn and speeding down the road, pausing only at one light to grin wide and stupid, and _Zach_ at Chris, whose face probably looks much the same.

  
-

They barely get through the door, and Chris doesn't think about neighbors at all with the way Zach is practically manhandling him over the threshold. He almost has his shirt off by the time the door shuts, and Zach's hands are running along his abs, one of them his sliding down the dip of his lower back. It feels like more than just Zach's hands touching him, and Chris rushes to get more of Zach's skin exposed, to feel more of the heat under his palms.

He says, "More," because it seems to be the dominate word in both of their minds, and Zach backs hip up against the wall near the coat tree and presses their hips together, leans so he's over Chris' body, rolling his hips in sharp, slow circles, Chris getting hard through the heavy denim of his jeans.

He groans up into Zach's mouth and pulls at his shirt collar, tugging at the v-neck until it's stretched out, obviously not going anywhere, and Zach growls a little into his mouth. He takes his own shirt off and bites down hard enough at the juncture of Chris' shoulder and neck that it hurts, white hot but good. Chris isn't sure if it's just because he's impatient or if it's in retaliation for the shirt --

"The shirt," Zach says, breathless and low, tugging Chris forward again, leading backwards through Chris' house to his bedroom in a way that Chris takes a moment to be pleased at, that Zach knows his way backwards.

"You and every other hipster have twenty like it," Chris says, because his neck stings, even if the feeling is a little pleasent. Zach stops moving and Chris falls a little forward into his chest. They are so, so close to the bedroom but Chris' brain short circuits a little when he hears and feels Zach's, "I want to fuck you," loud in his head and in the silence of Chris' apartment at night as Zach backs him into the linen closet door across from Chris bedroom.

Chris lets Zach press him against the door there for a minute, working on his own fly and then Zach's, palming Zach through his jeans and then the soft cotton of his boxers, hard under Chris' hand as Zach bends, back arching, to take one of Chris' nipples between his lips and tug, gently. Chris looses track of what he's doing and leans back against the door, head hitting a little harder than he expects when he groans, but Zach is on top of things. He pulls them back again, this time -- finally, Chris thinks, and Zach laughs low in his ear, pleased -- into Chris' bedroom, stepping out of their pants as they go.

Zach thinks about what he's going to to do with and to Chris as he goes, just like how he thinks on set, pre-meditates all his actions before he does them. Falling over Chris on the mattress as they both slide out of their boxers, Zach thinks about how he is going wrap his hand around Chris' dick and jerk him until he's got his legs spread wide, and Chris moans with the thought, a ghost, a sort of pre-echo of the touch to come playing itself across his skin.

With his hand wrapped around Chris' dick, Chris leaning up on his elbows to watch the way Zach's head is resting on his thigh, watching his own hand, Zach thinks about how he's going to take just the head of Chris' dick between his lips at first and suck until he has to hold Chris down by his hips, and Chris hears and feels that, too, and it's the most amazing feeling -- the thought of Zach's mouth on him accompanied by the real thing, Zach leaning and bending and opening his jaw, his lips wrapping around.

Chris doesn't pre-meditate his movements. He bucks up into Zach's mouth when Zach takes him all the way down, a smooth slide that wipes Chris' breath out for a minute, and he leans, bending over to drag Zach up by his arms, licking out wet and sloppy to taste himself on Zach's lips. Chris can feel Zach's surprise as a touch on his mind, as something there, and it's weird, strangely intimate without words.

Zach groans; he thinks about sliding back down Chris' body to take his dick back in his mouth but Chris doesn't want him to, not yet. He's content for a second with Zach's lips sliding between his own, open mouthed and careless and everywhere. Chris reaches down and shuffles himself across the mattress so he can get a hand around as much of both their dicks as he can, pressed together and almost dry save for the wet, cooling slick on Chris' dick from Zach mouth, and god, his _mouth_, letting his palm slide easier.

With a low noise, Zach twists away, eyes slanted, cheeks flushed in a way Chris hasn't really ever seen on Zach's face, not this close, at least. He pushes Chris back down onto the sheets, letting Chris settle himself back up onto his elbows to watch. Zach thinks about taking Chris' dick back in his mouth and he does, Chris closing his eyes with it, listening to the thoughts in Zach's mind as he decides what to do, groaning when Zach gets his fingers inside, spreading his legs wider, bending at his knees so his heels can dig into the mattress, so he can fuck himself down onto Zach's fingers.

(He knows what he likes, he just didn't know he'd like it so much with Zach, more than with himself, more than with the test runs and fantasies he'd tried out before. Zach is -- Zach is everything, everywhere at once, in his mind and on his skin and Chris can only reach down somewhat blindly with his hands to tangle one in Zach's hair, to dig the nails on his other hand into the soft skin on Zach's shoulder, dragging one nail over the ink-covered skin on Zach's bicep, watching his eyes flutter shut, lashes hitting his cheeks when he groans at it, high.)

"Fuck -- you --" Zach says, all his thoughts coming together. He fucks into Chris in precise, pre-mediated thrusts, hard, harder when Chris wraps his legs around, not even stopping to think about how they got from point a to point b, just letting Zach fuck him open and think the dirtiest fucking things about him, about being inside him, around him, about his lips and his ass.

Chris drags his nails down Zach's back and Zach says, "I felt that, before," panting it out, eyes going narrow when he bends down at an impossible angle to get to Chris lips. "I felt whoever you were with do that to you and it made me angry, made me --"

Chris digs his nails in harder, he wants Zach to feel it, to know they came from him his time, and Zach stops thinking about what he's going to do next and stops thinking at all, just touching everywhere, Chris barely lasting when Zach gets a hand wrapped around him, stilling inside on a deep thrust and jerking Chris off tight and fast until he can't hold on, coming over Zach's fist and his own stomach.

When Zach slips out of him Chris gradually relaxes in the mattress, bones aching and sore in a different way than the past week, in a good way, turning his body into liquid when he relaxes back, Zach wrapping around him, all long limbs and heat and hazy thoughts that Chris doesn't try and make sense of as he falls asleep, his first real sleep in what feels like forever.

  
-

  
Chris wakes up to humming, first, although it's not something he can hear, exactly. Instead, he can hear it as a sort of content, soft noise in the back of his mind, the movement of the melody located somewhere between where he and Zach's fingers are twisted together. It's warm all over, and Chris says, _good morning_, without actually saying it, and thinks about having the whole of Saturday before them.

He and Zach.

Zach smiles at his train of thought and pulls him a little closer, rolling sideways so they can see each other, a little bit of space in between.

Chris reaches out presses his palm, flat against Zach's chest, and it's weird -- he thinks he should feel something there, some sort of tangible connection, some tell-tale sign that matches where Zach has reached out and pressed his palm against Chris' chest, too. Chris doesn't feel anything special, though, except the heat of Zach's skin and the lightness of the hair there, resting under Chris' fingertips. It feels familiar, though, Zach's skin under his fingertips, almost like something Chris has had for much longer.

He doesn't believe in a lot of things like that, in fate, in falling into forever with someone as easily as picking out a couch -- except, he didn't believe in Star Trek-canon things like mind-melding, either, and yet he can hear Zach clearly in his head, the warmth his content grin gives, the pleasant touch of his early-morning hazy thoughts, mixed in with Chris' own.

It's -- nice. More than nice. It's Zach falling asleep on his thigh and Chris curling around the empty space on his couch months later. It's watching Zach put together an espresso machine at two in the morning in mid-December because Chris couldn't wait another week to give him a gift and also because he wanted coffee right at that moment. It's hotel rooms a year ago and hotel rooms around the world in a few months, this time sharing beds instead of just air, and --

Zach breathes out in Chris' hair. "I'm trying to go back to sleep," he says, groaning at the end just a little. "You're thinking too much."

"Deal with it," Chris says, grumpily but warmly, because he wants to go back to sleep, too, if Zach is going to sleep with him.

"I will," Zach breathes, mostly in his head and it's open ended in a way that Chris thinks means he won't be leaving any time soon, if ever.

They fall back asleep easily, catching up on roughly two weeks of much-needed hours to fill in the restless, sleepless nights, warm and tangled together, limbs and sheets.

  
-

  
The rest of filming goes pretty spectacularly. Chris and Zach stay on their game, especially in scenes together, and JJ bounces in their general direction a lot, breaks one camera and doesn't freak out, even though it's with three days to go until wrap and post-shoots.

Their thought-sharing starts to dissipate, but the feelings, the touching without touching and the warmth shared just by looking at each other or by thinking -- that grows stronger.

It's sort of awesome.

Zoe throws one last party, and this time Zach dips down and presses his hands to Chris' forehead when someone jokes about 'their creepy mindmeld game' and while everyone around them laughs at the theatrics, Zach shows Chris exactly what he's going to do to him when they get home. Chris smiles, slow and pleased, a little dirty, probably, and they make-out on suggestion for old time's sake against a background of hoots and hollers and Zoe's clapping.


End file.
